Kevin Bronson on January 25th, 2011

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Josh Thorpe, one-half of the songwriting braintrust behind Risers, concedes there’s a certain amount of “fed-up-ness” behind the music on the L.A. quintet’s debut EP. “Is that word?” he says, stopping himself and chuckling. “Well, you know what I mean. Love and struggle.” There’s plenty of emotional push and pull in the intricately layered rock Americana that Thorpe creates with longtime collaborator Sean Miller, from the wistful but buoyant single “A Current Affair” to the sprawling, noir-ish “Can’t Get There From Here.” Originally from Portland, Thorpe and Miller fronted a quartet called Anglos and released an EP in 2009 (featuring the memorable “Cleopatra”). But they lost half the band – the lineup is now filled out by drummer Daniel Goldblatt (ex-Walking Sleep), bassist Pat Nally and multi-instrumentalist Greg Katz (LA Font) – and spent much of last year agonizing over new recordings. “It was just not as expansive as we wanted it to be,” Thorpe says. “We had to walk away with it for a while.” Finally, a mix executed by Rob Brill did the trick, and the EP [available in its entirety here] is out this week.

||| Download: Risers, “A Current Affair”

Photo by Josh Gibson